Yes, well I shouldn’t have mentioned rain. No warmer but wet and windy, though not really enough rain to do much good. The chicken run is finished and the girlies had a lovely time outside today. If you follow me on Fbook or Instagram, I put up a short video of them coming outside for the first time.

Al and the family called over yesterday. By good fortune, I’d made a chocolate cake a couple of days earlier, so I could ply them with tea and cake. They brought Wink’s birthday present – some solar-powered lights for the garden – and I gave them eggs to take away, so all was happy. I love to see people, but it tires me out, I’m so unused to it. I suppose I’ll get better at this.

The only other remarkable thing is that I’ve addressed the alcohol situation. We’ve been unashamedly treating every day as a weekend and I knew, of course, that it had gone beyond a cheering-up thing and become habitual. Not addictive, of course, we don’t have that problem, which is lucky. So a spritzer before dinner and a glass of wine with is my normal preference now. Though I sometimes just have tomato juice before. Still no substitute for wine, I’d rather have nothing at all than low-alcohol versions, I don’t want to drink fruit at dinner, nor anything sugary. Water is fine, obviously, if I’m thirsty.

I’m using the contents of the salad drawer, so it’s roasted veg for dinner, vegetable soup for lunch and salad yesterday. So virtuous.